7. Every Check Should Be Dated

If, however, this has been omitted, the holder may supply it. Sometimes a check is post dated; when it is, payment should not be made in advance. One reason for post dating a check is, the maker may not have adequate funds in the bank to pay on immediate presentation, but expects to have enough there at the date of payment.

8. A Check Should Be Signed In A Proper Manner

The depositor should always follow the form in the signature book, so that the paying teller can become familiar with it, and the risk of paying a forged check thereby be diminished. As a bank is responsible for any mistake made in paying a depositor's checks, the requirement is reasonable that he should exercise due care in signing them. When a person represents a company, the proper form is to put its name and his own afterward. Thus, " Atlantic Railroad Co., by John Smith, Treas.," or "Treasurer." This form, however, is often varied by agreement with the bank. Of course, any form will suffice that is understood by the parties. In the absence of any agreement or understanding, the signing of a check by a man with the words, " Treas.," "Secy.," or other word, is regarded simply as his individual check, and the additional word as a description of the signer and not the obligation of any company with which he may be connected.

9. Drawer Must Have Funds

The drawing of a check on a bank in which the drawer has no funds is a fraud, both on the person to whom it is given and on the bank. And the holder is also guilty of fraud should he present it for payment, knowing that the drawer has no funds; if, therefore, it is passed to the holder's credit and charged to the drawer, this is not payment, and the holder can not recover the amount from the bank.

10. Duty Of A Bank To Honor Checks

In some states a bank on which a check is drawn is under no legal obligation to the holder to pay or to accept it, whether the maker's funds are sufficient for this purpose or not. In other states, especially in Illinois, Kentucky, and some other states, the effect of giving of a check to a person is to transfer the amount of the maker's deposit therein specified, and the checkholder can sue the bank for the same whenever payment is declined. But in the states where this rule does not prevail, the holder of a check can not recover from the bank on which it is drawn unless its payment has been accepted. A bank should not delay long either to pay, to accept, or to refuse payment. It is not right to keep a check for several days and then refuse to pay. While this is the most general rule existing between banks and check-holders, these institutions have well-defined duties to perform for those who properly draw checks on them. Their orders must be observed; and if a bank should decline to pay a check drawn on a sufficient fund belonging to one of its depositors, without a justifiable reason for so doing, the institution would be liable for whatever injury the depositor sustained in consequence of its neglect to execute his order or direction. For example, if a bank should decline to pay a check supposing that the maker's deposit was insufficient, when in truth it was ample, the institution would be liable for the consequence of dishonoring his order, even though its conduct was founded on the mistaken calculation of a bookkeeper.

a. When a Check is an Assignment. - The different legal effects or consequences of these two ways of regarding checks are important. Let us describe the legal effects of regarding a check ;as an assignment of the maker's deposit to the amount therein specified.

If a depositor has drawn two checks at different times, and his deposit is sufficient to pay only one, and both are received at the bank at the same time, the check first drawn, or having the oldest date, must be paid.

Again, it the drawer of a check is sued and his deposit is attached, the holder of his check can claim the deposit, notwithstanding the attachment, He is regarded as having a far better right to the deposit than the attaching creditor. The deposit in law became his as soon as he received the check, and the attaching creditor has no right whatever to the checkholder's deposit.

If the depositor fails, the holder of an unpaid check is entitled to payment when the deposit is sufficient. The depositor's assignee who is appointed to take charge of his estate for the benefit of his creditors can make no claim thereto.

The depositor can not revoke payment of his check for the reason that the money therein mentioned has passed from his control to the holder of the check.

b. When a Check is not an Assignment. - Wherever the other rule prevails, that a check gives the holder no control over the maker's deposit until it has been accepted by the drawee bank, these rules are reversed. It may be added that in all the states when a check is drawn for the entire amount of a deposit, the legal title is completely transferred on the delivery of the check even against the drawer; but when only a part is included in the check or order, it will not have that effect except in the states where the delivery of a check is regarded as immediately passing the deposit to the holder.